Travis Masse, former Broomfield High teacher and coach, talks with his attorney Pamela Mackey before the afternoon session of Masse's sexual assault trial Tuesday.
(
David Jennings
)

BROOMFIELD -- Former Broomfield High teacher and coach Travis Masse wrote vulgar and offensive text messages -- exchanging over a three-month period nearly 9,000 messages with an underage female student -- but he never had sex with the girl, his attorney said in court Tuesday.

Pamela Mackey, who defended LA Lakers star Kobe Bryant against sex assault charges, told a jury of eight women and five men that the stress of having a young family and a high-profile job as a wrestling coach led Masse, 29, to make the regrettable decision to start contacting his female students.

But tawdry texting was as far as it went, she said.

"The evidence in this case will show that Mr. Travis Masse did not have sexual relations, or any physical contact, with (the alleged victim)," she said in opening statements.

Masse, who is married with children, is charged with sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust, and sexual assault on a child by person in a position of trust as part of a pattern of abuse, both felonies.

Prosecutor Lisa Hunt told the jury Tuesday that Masse knew exactly what he was doing and exploited his role as teacher to have sex with a 17-year-old girl.

"Parents send their children to school to learn their ABCs, not to be personally tutored in the birds and bees," she said. "The defendant used his position of trust with the students and the other coaches around him and abused that trust."

Alleged victim takes the stand

The prosecution's star witness took the stand to recount in sordid detail the multiple times she and Masse were allegedly intimate.

The 19-year-old woman, who was in Masse's sociology and history classes, testified that he had sexual relations with her in his car near Anthem Lake in Broomfield, and at wrestling tournaments in Grand Junction, Elizabeth and in southern California, from November 2008 through February 2009.

Besides being Masse's student, the woman was also a manager for his wrestling squad.

The former student told the jury the physical contact with Masse began when she was 17 and a junior in high school, and it followed several years of sexually explicit text messaging with Masse, which included transmitting nude photos of herself.

She described giving Masse oral sex on several occasions and having sexual intercourse with him in a hotel room in California during a wrestling tournament.

As a result of the relationship, the woman said, she didn't have to do homework in Masse's class.

"I didn't have to, because I was having a sexual relationship with him and I was getting an A," she testified.

She said at first she didn't feel bad for Masse's wife, who was also a teacher of hers at Broomfield High, because she was under the impression that the couple's marriage was falling apart.

But when Masse contacted her again in March 2010 after a year of silence -- sending her two pictures of himself with his baby and one photo of his penis -- she felt that Masse's wife should know what happened, she said.

"I felt guilty that she was living with a man that was cheating on her and raising a son with him and I felt she needed to know the truth," she said.

The former student testified that she forwarded the graphic photo and texts to an acquaintance, who turned them over to police.

Masse was arrested a month later.

He faces another trial next month on a separate charge of attempted unlawful sexual contact with a child, after prosecutors cited the emergence of a second alleged victim in February.

Defense challenges woman's credibility

Mackey, Masse's attorney, spent much of Tuesday knocking the credibility of her client's accuser during cross-examination, questioning her stated timeline of events and pointing out inconsistencies in interviews she gave to detectives.

"The dates are mixed up, the times are mixed up," Mackey said.

The attorney cited phone records that show Masse was texting throughout the evening of Jan. 17, 2009 -- the night the alleged victim says she had sex with him in a California hotel room -- and that there was only a short window of inactivity on his phone in which the two could have gotten together.

Mackey said that opportunity occurred earlier in the evening than the woman had claimed.

"Now you are saying in those 32 minutes everything that you've told this jury this afternoon happened?" she asked the witness.

"Yes. It didn't ever last that long," the woman replied.

Mackey also asked the woman why she had told police that her final physical encounter with Masse was in January 2009 when she claims now that they got together again a month later.

The woman admitted that she didn't remember exact dates and times but that her larger claim that she had sex with Masse was without question.

Mackey questioned another witness, Ashley Miknis, who was also a manager for the Broomfield High School wrestling team and roomed with the alleged victim during overnight tournaments. Miknis said her friend had a reputation for stretching the truth.

"She has been known to exaggerate, and when it happens, it's really exaggerating," she testified.

But when prosecutors asked Miknis if she had any reason to doubt that Masse had slept with her roommate during the California trip, she said no. She testified that she delivered a condom to a room where her roommate was getting together with Masse, though she acknowledged that she never entered the room or saw the coach at the time.

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